Today I was perusing the website of charity: water as I wanted to see what kind of data visualizations they used to communicate the impact of their work.
I think I was expecting a lot more than I saw at first. On their page that tries to teach the website visitor about their work (see here if you’re curious) the only visualization that I saw was this map:
I was surprised at first. Surely they have more to present to their visitors? But I realised it makes sense! Most people aren’t incurable data nerds like me. A map (interactive no less!) is a fantastic tool to get people to engage in the work that you do.
Let’s say you were expecting more than what the map shows in India. Here’s what happened when I zoomed in on the region:
Ahh! Now we see that not only are there sizeable projects in the north, but there are also much smaller ones peppered throughout the region as well!
My biggest complaint in all of this is it’s not immediately clear what is represented by the size of the circles. Is it the # of people served? The # of water projects? They should clarify that!